


You Don't Even Know My Name

by splix



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Implied Slash, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Mary Morstan, Season/Series 03, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-05
Updated: 2014-09-05
Packaged: 2018-02-16 05:00:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2256744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splix/pseuds/splix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The spider's web: She finds an innocuous corner in which to spin her web. The longer the web takes, the more fabulous its construction. She has no need to chase. She sits quietly, her patience a consummate force; she waits for her prey to come to her on their own, and then she ensnares them, injects them with venom, rendering them unable to escape. </i> </p><p>--- Donna Hope</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Don't Even Know My Name

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Con*Strict 2014 zine.
> 
> Thanks to: kimberlite for beta; vilestrumpet for Britpicking; and Sian for publishing the fic and hosting a kick-ass con, as well as for the lovely frontispiece.
> 
> This story has been podficced by [consulting_smartass](http://archiveofourown.org/users/consulting_smartass/pseuds/consulting_smartass)! Find it [here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4805516)

[](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/splix/media/mary_zps22442d5e.jpg.html)

 

*

They sit in the dark, watching Sherlock fall. He's graceful, even as he leaps to his death. She backs it up, replays it. _Whoosh._ There he goes. Bye-bye.

"I think I shot too soon. I could have drawn it out a bit more," Jim says.

"No, no, it was good. It didn't go exactly to plan, but overall, I'm pretty happy." She draws on her cigarette. "How's his friend?"

"Devastated. I almost feel sorry for him."

"And his brother?"

"Nobody's seen him, but he's a cold fish. Stiff upper lip and all that." Jim's intonation is RP, mocking.

"Hospital report?"

"Massive cranial trauma." Jim chuckles a bit. "I'm not going to lie to you, I'm relieved this is over. Not that I couldn't have gone on," he adds hastily, "but I mean, come on, who's _that_ crazy? I can't even believe Sherlock bought it. Every minute I spent with him I was sure he was going to call me out."

She smiles and stubs out her cigarette. "You're a good actor, Jim, which is why I pay you so goddamn much. What time's your train?"

"First one this morning – five-forty. I'm packed and ready."

"Good. Text me when you get to Paris, and again from Tangier. There's a bonus in your account – despite a couple of obvious flaws, it all went really well." She holds her glass out, and Jim clinks his against it. "Congratulations."

"Thanks." Jim swallows his drink and gets up. "I'd better get going. You know where to find me if you need me."

"I'm pretty sure I won't, but you never know. Don't change your mobile number without giving me the new one."

Jim leaves, and she sits alone in the darkness, watching Sherlock fall and fall and fall.

 

*

 

It's a year and a half later when the information, no more than a series of emails, comes into her hand. Her cells are collapsing with no discernible perpetrator to blame, no trace of evidentiary information. It's as if a ghost is slipping in, hacking, stealing, tipping off local authorities, sometimes committing violence – she's enraged and frustrated. San Francisco, Sao Paolo, Helsinki, Belfast, Kiev, Marseilles – toppling one by one, setting off invisible shockwaves. She can't seem to stop it, though she tries.

And then, a thread, a fine silken snarl – an intercepted mobile call, an address, an IP number, these emails. It's the date that catches her attention first – three days before Sherlock's leap into the great unknown. And then the text.

_> >>SBH agrees on premises for Lazarus project but station MUST not be blocked for more than twenty minutes. They want confirmation in writing. _

_> >We won't need more than ten. Send confirmation._

_> Done._

It takes her two weeks before she finds someone to talk. Covered in snot from a phlegmy old man's intubation removal and tucked far away from prying eyes, she sneaks a smoke with Lucy, her new A&E friend, and listens as Lucy talks along gently guided pathways. Most people prefer talking to listening; she is not most people.

"Oh, _yeah_ I recall that. Were you here then? I don't remember you." Lucy frowns slightly, as if trying to place her.

"I was up at the cancer centre – that was what, two years ago? Think so. All I remember is that there was a big secret, and lots of gabbing in whispers when it was all over. There's some what can't keep their gobs shut." Her accent is faded Sheffield, her posture intimate. She smiles widely.

"It wasn't me – Christ, they told us to keep shtum under pain of death. Still, I guess it doesn't matter now. It was all very hush-hush. We ran out with a stretcher and scooped this handsome bloke off the pavement, whisked him into a room, and that was it, really. I was in the room when he got up, but some grim copper types hurried us out of there. I thought it was for telly at first, but I never saw cameras." Lucy blows a perfect smoke ring. "It looked good and he played dead really well and he was really dishy, like I said – that's why I thought he was an actor." Lucy giggles.

She chimes in companionably, grinds her cigarette out with the toe of her clog, and draws her scalpel. She slits Lucy's throat before the poor stupid bitch can even ask her what she's doing, and walks away before her body hits the ground. She's splattered with blood as well as snot now, but she's a nurse; that's what happens to nurses.

That night, she begins her homework, her anger slightly assuaged by the pleasure she took in killing Lucy. Honestly, though, she'd be lying if she said there wasn't just a teeny-weeny part of her that's pleased by Sherlock's antics. It's not like he's subtle, far from it, but he is clever. And a clever man wouldn't live with someone _completely_ ordinary, would he?

 

*

 

He's nice-looking. Not glamorous like Sherlock, but nice all the same. Compact, slim, warm, competent, exactly what you'd want from a GP. Even his name is reassuring. Discontentment in his eyes, though – he hides it well enough, but it flashes through his kindly demeanor now and then. He quizzes her for ten minutes, actually pays attention to her CV. 

"This isn't as exciting as A&E," he says apologetically. "Bog-standard stuff, really. Bumps and bruises, bad tummies, bad backs. Lots of referrals."

"To be completely and brutally frank, I can use a little bit of boring right now. A&E burnout, you know. Shootings and stabbings and overdoses galore – no end of excitement, but it can get to be a bit much after a year and a half." This time her accent is vague London. She mirrors his gestures, leans forward and grins unabashedly, inviting him into her space. 

"You don't think you'd miss it?" His voice is wistful, and she conceals a delighted shudder. Oh, Sherlock had chosen so well. So very well. She's glad she chose this particular route. And it had been far too long since she'd been hands-on. So to speak.

"Not a bit," she replies firmly. "Well, two or three years down the road, maybe, but I promise to give you thirty days' notice."

"Well, Ms. Morstan –"

"Oh, call me Mary."

"Mary, then." He looks up from her CV and smiles tentatively. "That's a nice name, Mary."

She ducks her head and makes a silly waving gesture with one hand. "Old-fashioned."

"Pretty, though. It suits you." He seems to realize he's made a gaffe and looks down at her CV again. "The truth is, we've been really short-staffed. Wendy, the lady you'd be replacing, just buggered off and never came back. I didn't think I was all that bad." He smiles again, more openly than before.

"Oh, people buggered off all the time in A&E. I'm used to that," she says cheerfully. "I can start whenever you like – I'm as free as a bird. I'm a dab hand at organization, too, if she left your files in a bit of a state. People who bugger off suddenly tend to do that." Organizing Wendy's disposal in the Thames had been pretty simple, at least.

He laughs. It's a nice sound. "You're a mind reader, too. I'm impressed. Can you start next week?"

"This afternoon, if you want."

"I wish. Sodding paperwork." He gestures at the stack on his desk. "Would Monday be soon enough?"

She holds eye contact for a moment. "I think I can wait that long." She sticks a hand out. "I'll see you Monday, then."

He takes her hand and squeezes it briefly – professional, courteous, but his eyes are brighter than before, and she can't deny that this excites her. Getting back in the game excites her. She wonders about Sherlock: the notes she'd had removed from John's shrink had indicated extreme grief, vast oceans of suffering. If Sherlock was on his way back – and he would be soon, he was doing a thorough job, but she was pulling out of the remaining operations and didn't give a fuck if they collapsed or not – then surely, surely he'd want to see John. He was devoted to John, in his way.

She allows herself a moment to envision them together. It's a pretty picture.

Maybe, just maybe, she'd gotten sloppy last time. Too hasty, hadn't tied off every loose end. This time the game would run longer. She'd draw it out, reveal tidbits piece by piece. She'd feel sorry for John, but compassion isn't her area.

 

*

 

Three months later, she asks him up to her place, and he accepts immediately. If she'd asked sooner, he would have accepted sooner, but she is neither hurried nor voracious. But when he kisses and caresses her, she is surprised to find herself kissing back just as eagerly. And when he enters her, she clings to him and urges him deeper.

She is not one to confuse sexual arousal with emotion, but afterward, when they're lying in bed together, examining each other's nakedness, she impulsively touches his cheek. And when John talks about Sherlock – he always does, always, and usually he can't say too much or too little – this time when he says Sherlock wasn't interested in sex, he always wondered if Sherlock was gay, people made comments all the time, he couldn't understand why, blah blah blah, she wishes he would stop. Or that Sherlock would walk in and see them. She's angry, and covers it by shimmying down and sucking John's cock to quiet him.

It works like a charm.

 

*

 

They visit Sherlock's grave. Funny that the sex came first, but this feels more intimate.

"He'd hate this. Least sentimental man I've ever met. Or so he liked to think. He had his moments."

She squeezes his arm. "He loved you."

"I don't know." John sighs. "If he did, why'd he jump? I would have helped him get through it. He wasn't one to be done in by public humiliation. He was the one who asked me if I –"

She waits a few beats, then prompts him with exceeding gentleness. "Asked you?"

"Why I cared about the rumors about…me and him." John shifts; his cheeks redden from more than the cold.

"Nobody likes to be misunderstood."

"Yeah," John says unhappily. "I guess so."

"What would you say to him if he walked up to you right now? If he was alive?" The probing is so cruelly delicate that John's discernible reaction is understated, a fleeting moment of steely silence that she recognizes as still-raw grief. She contains her own shudder of pleasure and briefly wishes she'd known John before the fall. Relying on Jim was maybe _too_ clever, the device of Moriarty and his endless chasm of ennui too obvious.

Then John laughs. "I'd hug the stuffing out of him. People would talk, but…." He blows out a breath and falls silent again.

She hugs him. She's no softer now than she was a year ago, but she loves holding him, protecting him. Though he'd never admit it, he craves what he lost, that sense of invulnerability, knowing Sherlock would save him if the danger got too hot.

She is becoming an expert on John Watson. 

Making up for lost time.

 

*

 

Knowing her account is watched, knowing it will be soon, she tweets their outings regularly, and nothing so far. But this morning there's been a ripple: private flight from Serbia. Two passengers: Mycroft Holmes and what appears to be a vagrant – dirty, smelly, covered with a blanket, walking slowly, helped to a car.

He's home. A nearly unbearable excitement suffuses her.

Her network is a mock-up of Facebook, in which John has no interest. He tousles her hair when she confesses to being a bit of an addict. And he fumbles with the small box in his pocket, waiting for an opportunity that never comes.

She's still in her nightie, in bed and on her laptop, and John is shaving. "What about dinner tonight? I feel like celebrating the end of this bollocksy week."

There's a surprised and delighted exhalation of breath from the loo. "Right. Okay. Where should we go?"

"I suggested it – that means you have to decide."

Two beats before he speaks. "The Landmark?"

"Ooh, aren't we the toff?"

"We are. Tonight, at least."

"All right. I'll try to remember not to drink from the finger bowls." She logs on to Twitter. _Himself says he's taking me to @LandmarkLondon tonight! What to wear? #poshspicenow #moneybags_

John comes out of the loo, shining clean, a towel knotted at his hips. She drinks him in and knows now what Sherlock saw in him. Her heart gives a funny larrup of excitement. She's going to say yes. 

He smiles, and she smiles back.

Tonight. Tonight, tonight.

 

*

 

She hasn't been this close to him since the Carl Powers thing. She'd spent weeks afterward loitering near the police station, and one day she'd seen him striding down the street toward her, tallish, slim, messy-haired, arguing with a pretty blonde lady.

_"I don't understand why nobody thinks this is important!"_

_"Darling, all sorts of things could have happened. Someone else might have picked them up in the confusion. Maybe he accidentally put them in another locker. Maybe the police mislaid them."_

_She'd stiffened with sudden terror and rage. He knew…how could he have known? She trembles, straining to listen, drawing another perfectly even square of her hopscotch set._

_"No, can't be. The police are stupid, but I don't think they're that stupid."_

_"Try not to actually say that to them, Sherlock. Behave yourself – I'm doing this as a favor to you, remember. Excuse me, dear." The blonde lady smiles at her and side-steps the hopscotch figures._

_She is skinny, small, pallid. She wouldn't have minded being invisible, but she wasn't. Carl made fun of her American accent, her size, her good grades, egging his friends on, pulling at her hair and yanking her cotton panties down on the playground, mocking her tears. She'd fixed that, and nobody had known. But now…._

_Surreptitiously, she watches them go in, and waits. When they emerge from the station – the lady with an expression of long-suffering patience, the boy sulky. He stomps ahead of the lady – his mother, they have the exact same eyes – and scowls at her. She smiles timidly, and he folds his arms and glares at her before turning his attention to his mother._

_"I told you they were stupid."_

_"They could have been less obstructive, I'll give you that. Still, they listened, which was more than I expected."_

_"Only because you insisted." They are walking down the street; she trails behind, straining her ears._

_"Life can be tyranny, Sherlock. The old lord it over the young, the rich over the poor, the beautiful over the plain. Don't forget this when you're tempted to be cruel to someone. It was a good hypothesis, though. I'm proud of you." His mother puts a comforting arm round his shoulder – he is as tall as she – and briefly, he leans his head against hers._

_With hungry eyes she watches them leave, and though her relief is great, she's also strangely disappointed._

_She remembers his name._

His eyes rake over her, cataloguing, assessing what she's allowed him to see. Some of it is truth, some lies. She smiles, letting a lovely sensation of recklessness overwhelm her for a split second as she thinks about letting him see it all. She can't, not now, but oh, God, isn't it tempting? All this time, all that distance. And Sherlock, not knowing what to make of her beyond what he sees, his body hurting from the Baron's untender mercies, but saying nothing to John – so stoic! Bless him. She climbs into the waiting cab.

"Can you believe his nerve?"

Lovely John, so shocked, so wounded. And Sherlock, same. At this moment she wants them both and indulges herself with an image of them together, naked, fettered, broken. All hers.

She smiles again. "I like him."

 

*

 

What really decides her, in the end, is what Sherlock doesn't say.

They're in the hospital, waiting for the doctor's assessment. John will be fine. A _little_ smoke inhalation never killed anybody. Well, most people, certainly not John, not tonight.

Side by side in uncomfortable plastic chairs they wait, sipping terrible muddy coffee from the nurse's station. Sherlock's hands, protected by gloves, are fine, but some of the skin on his wrists has been singed a bit. A nurse bathes the ouchies with cool water over his protests and wraps them loosely with gauze.

"You didn't have to insist on treatment. I was fine. I _am_ fine."

"I'm sure you were, and are, but I wanted to be certain. Don't want to have to worry over both of you." She beams at him.

"Hm." Sherlock cradles the polystyrene cup gently in his hands, as tenderly as he cradled John's face after dragging him from the bonfire. His posture is weary, he's sickly pale, and there are smudges beneath his eyes that have nothing to do with the soot dirtying his face. He takes a breath. "Mary –"

"Yeah? What is it, Sherlock?"

He looks her full in the face, and she sees the questions that have been niggling at him. _How do you know about skip codes, Mary? How did you know John was in trouble, Mary? What are you hiding, Mary?_ He could dig and discover Mary Morstan was a carapace enclosing nothing. He could denounce her to John. He would never discover her full truth without her consent, and one day, perhaps, she would tell him everything – but he could end her and John with a word.

She waits.

"Have the two of you set a date yet?"

Euphoria sends an exquisite thrill through her.

The game is on again.

 

End.


End file.
